


Best Laid Plans

by TheMoments (TBs_LMC)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alistair (Dragon Age) is a Good Friend, Archdemons (Dragon Age), Blushing Alistair (Dragon Age), Declarations Of Love, Dragon Age: Origins Quest - Morrigan's Ritual, F/M, Final Battle, Grey Warden Alistair (Dragon Age), Grey Wardens, Happy Ending, Married Characters, Old Gods (Dragon Age), Post-Canon, Post-Dragon Age: Origins, Pregnancy, Sappy, Sweet Zevran Arainai, The Taint (Dragon Age), True Love, Warden Mahariel (Dragon Age), Young Dorian Pavus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28247835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments
Summary: In which nothing goes like the Dalish Warden, her husband Zevran or fellow Grey Warden Alistair thought it would the day the archdemon is slain. However, this turns out to be a good thing.Oh, and I've imported someone we all adore from DAI. :-)
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Female Warden
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> World: Dragon Age Origins (but crosses over into Inquisition territory due to a single character)
> 
> Scenes: Slaying of Archdemon and post-game aftermath
> 
> References: In-Game occurrences, other canon, but goes off-canon a wee bit
> 
> My Grey Warden: Named Qara (pronounced like CARE-UH), Female Dalish elf mage born in Denerim alienage, taken to Circle while extremely young, has face tattoo and eye shadow in browns, with brown and blonde streaked shoulder-length hair and very dark brown eyes.
> 
> Grey Warden Romance: Has always and only been Zevran for her heart, even though Alistair tried wooing her while she was falling for Zev, going so far as to give her the rose and so forth before she had to explicitly tell him no.

**BEST LAID PLANS**

* * *

All the planning. All the promises, tears, fears and tactics. It had all come down to this.

Morrigan had wanted to lay with Alistair. He had refused, promising instead, in the face of an increasingly worried and high-strung Zevran, that he would take the final blow against the archdemon. That _he_ would be the one making the ultimate sacrifice, so _they_ could live on.

Qara wasn’t having it. She didn’t want to leave Zev alone. Had no idea what would come of him without her, as he so often had said. Didn’t know if he and Alistair would ever be able to look each other in the eye in spite of the promises made before Archon Hessarian’s statue. How Alistair’s guilt might eat him alive upon Qara’s death, wishing he’d done that little thing of making a baby with the witch just to save everyone’s lives. But she’d always known this was her duty. That even though she’d not forced Alistair into the kingship, he was exactly what the Grey Wardens needed to rebuild and keep another Blight from ravaging Ferelden and beyond, for buried deep within him was indeed the leader he refused to acknowledge existed.

She and Zev and even Alistair had searched and searched throughout the lands and wilds and books and every source they could find in their travels for a cure, but until Morrigan had come to Alistair’s chamber the night before, none of them had known there could be any way to stop it all. When he had sheepishly approached to ask for her advice on what to do, Qara had told him not to go against his values or his heart. Not for her, not for Zevran, not for anyone, for none of them would be able to live with such in the aftermath. Just before the battle, he’d told her he had refused the witch, and apologized as a lone tear trickled from his eye. In a rare moment, they had held one another, albeit briefly, for they were Grey Wardens going into what might be the very last battle for them both and battle was not the time for tears, regrets or maybes.

Well, maybe just a few. With her beloved husband, wed in a Dalish ceremony not one week earlier. And then he had steeled himself, that cold glint in his eye that meant the assassin was now present and would do whatever it took to see this through. Later, she knew, Zevran the man would emerge to deal with the aftermath.

The dragon was far bigger than any Qara had ever seen. Her staff grew hot to the touch she was using it so much, but she held it fast. Lyrium potions couldn’t replenish her fast enough. She kept an eye on the battlefield enough to know the elves were perched atop one of the turret flats where a broken trebuchet served as higher ground for levying shots that whizzed and zinged through the chilled night air, some with fire, some with ice, some with a speed only arrows of the Dalish could match.

Their dwarven allies were making mincemeat of the dragon’s legs and feet alongside twenty or so human soldiers and the handful of mages that had managed to make it up past the darkspawn without being required as shields, barriers or healers for the rest trying to force their way to the top. Somewhere she was sure she’d seen the familiar Templar armor from her days in the Circle and wondered how many men Greagoir had managed to rally. And whether any of them had been dear, sweet Cullen, who’d been so broken the last time she’d seen him.

She spotted Wynne’s bright red robe as a mere speck against the backdrop of stars on a platform opposite hers, alongside Sten’s massive form as he protected her with Asala while she worked tirelessly to rejuvinate, petrify and heal all within her range. Rabbit, so named by Wynne, the Mabari once part of King Cailan’s kennels and the only thing any of them had left of the former regime’s leader, lunged after shrieks and genlocks and every manner of darkspawn so fearlessly that pride welled from deep within her as more and more and more poured from the openings below them to stem the tide of the Wardens’ army. Joining Rabbit, Shale and Leliana were in the thick of the throngs with fists and bolts flying while Morrigan charged into their fray as a massive bear whose jaws could snap an emissary in half without a thought.

Qara cast a freeze spell on a genlock followed by caging an approaching emissary alpha, who barely stumbled as she followed it right after with petrification. This allowed a handful of Eamon’s soldiers to make quick and bloody work of it. With a swirl of her hands she raised four dead nearby and the skeletons leapt into the fray with all the fervor of fanatics to her cause.

Alistair battled through twin lines of ‘spawn with Zev darting in and out for low blows and dirty tricks, needling his deadly lightning-runed and poisoned weapons in between fastenings, into jugulars and along the fronts of throats while Alistair’s fire-runed Starfang combusted the bellies of every fiend it made contact with. Oghren barreled into a tank of an ogre with more berserker tearing from his lips than Qara had ever heard from him before, followed by Legion of the Dead swarming the ogre like ants on a lazy-day picnic blanket.

So much to keep track of. But what really mattered was the archdemon. And it, Qara saw, was flagging. Glad for the millionth time that she’d ditched mage robes in favor of the much more practical drakescale armor Wade’s hilarious attitude and skilled hands had crafted to fit her like a second skin, Qara took off at a dead run as the warriors brought the dragon down hard onto its chest, feet so badly mangled the creature could no longer stand. She quickly cast upon herself a speed spell, knowing others would barely see her as a streak of light from her run between platforms to where the dragon screamed in pure hatred and intense agony.

Someone threw a longsword. It hurtled end over end in almost slow-motion past Qara’s head and lodged itself firmly in the dragon’s left eye. The fiend roared, blue fire pouring from its mouth, head and neck lowering at just the right time for Qara to take a flying leap through the air as though she had wings. She brought the bladed end of her staff to bear and shoved it clear up to the crystals she’d lovingly and carefully tied round its head with halla leather straps cured by her own hand, as taught to her by their Dalish allies. She may have been an elf, but she’d never known anything of them beyond the Denerim alienage where she’d been born until her quest as a Grey Warden had taken her into the tutelage of a very understanding and eager Keeper who strove to teach her all she could. Bless Lanaya, whom she knew was back in the Brecelian Forest tending to those of their clan not partaking in the battle.

That thought of acceptance, of familial love like she’d never known, it boosted and drove home Qara’s magical energy as she twisted the blade deep within the dragon’s long neck. The beast roared at such a high pitch that it felt like it was cracking her skull in two and before she could grasp what was happening, the sound of giant flapping wings overtook her and a sense of disorientation and weightlessness nearly made her vomit as the archdemon lifted itself into the air to escape its tormentors.

Qara held onto her staff for dear life, lodged as it was firmly in between two massive scales. Then a large thump and jolt that nearly dislodged her, and she knew the dragon had landed, probably too wounded to remain airborne. Where they were exactly, she couldn’t tell, for the beast’s blood poured from its wound, covering her in its warm sticky mess and making it nearly impossible to see. Qara felt so lightheaded that she wondered if she even had the strength to attempt to pull the blade of her staff out and thrust it back in again, for she needed to reach the base of its skull, anywhere in its head area, to ensure it died once and for all.

The archdemon gave a great shake and shudder and jerked its head and neck to and fro until at last the slippery blood loosed Qara’s grip and she crashed painfully to the stone tiles beneath, wind knocked from her tiny frame in a whoosh of air. She heard and felt ribs break, blood sputtering from her mouth with every labored breath. In a moment’s clarity she and the archdemon made eye contact just as its massive head lowered, jaws wide, to make short work of the one who would force it from its dragonseat.

And then a familiar smell and a body barreled into her as it lifted her, yanked her, from the floor and spun her around a split second before the jaws snapped shut on where she’d just been. Zev had her!

Just like that, without words or any need for communication outside of their bubble of existence, two daggers lodged their grips in her hands. His hands closed around hers over top of them and she knew immediately what he was doing. She was so spent. So wounded. So wracked with pain. Zevran was going to stab for her, but make sure it was _her_ hands between pommel and ferrule so the death would actually _take_.

In spite of everything he had sworn to the contrary, he was helping her _die_. And her broken ribs meant she couldn’t even tell him how much she loved him.

A loud battle cry tore from his lips right next to her ear as his powerful legs launched them from the platform. He whirled them in mid-air, landing astride the back of the dragon’s neck just at the base of its skull and in the same fluid motion both daggers sank home and the dragon screamed, rearing back. Zevran’s legs squeezing the dragon’s neck kept them in place as their hands pulled the daggers out and plunged them back in again. Then, as if by a miracle which she knew had to have been the healing spells of at least two different mages, all of Qara’s strength returned to her as bones snapped into place and sinew healed and her lungs cleared, and by the gods and the ancestors and the paragons and the Maker, Zevran knew when she’d returned to herself for he yelled, “Ha _ha_!” as he so often did in battle when he knew he was winning. Together their hands pulled his daggers from the dragon’s neck and plunged one on each side just behind its jawbone.

The dragon fell, long neck crashing to the hard platform, she and Zev leaping away in time to not get their legs crushed, She turned to see what was happening, realized it wasn’t quite dead yet when it grunted and one eye peeked open at her. Zev tossed her Starfang, and in that instant Qara knew Alistair had to be dead, for surely the sword she’d given him as a gift never left his hand or its sheath.

No words were needed now between she and her Zev. They never had been, in spite of how many had been volleyed back and forth over the past nine months. Starfang’s grip landed firmly in her palm. She let out a battle cry unlike any sound she had ever made, Alistair first and foremost on her mind as her hand held his bloody sword. Qara leapt through the air, coming down hard on her knees and driving the greatsword clean through the dragon’s skull.

Light poured from the opening. Zevran was suddenly behind her not to pull her away, but to wrap his hands around her two as she wrenched the sword back and forth, trying to make as much mincemeat out of the creature’s brain as she could, not knowing what exactly she needed to do to get the archdemon out beyond kill the host.

“I’m not leaving you!” Zevran yelled into her ear, body somehow wrapped around hers as the intensity of the light increased. “I will die with you!”

And in that moment of clarity, of pure love filling her, surrounding her and enveloping her in the safety, security and perfection that was the love of her life, Qara felt peace. The smirk when he’d first realized she liked him. The look of incredulity when she’d not killed him in the aftermath of him trying to kill her. The near-shyness on his face as he’d fallen with trepidation into the realization that what was happening between them wasn’t stolen moments of pleasure but something neither of them had ever felt before or could even label until they finally realized, in one moment of pure passion in Arl Eamon’s castle, that this was _love_.

Every look, touch, gesture. Every sigh, whisper, laugh. It all flashed around her and through her and before her and she smiled, heart singing, the blast of a dying archdemon deafening her to all but _him_.

* * *

“But why are they…how…how is she still _alive_?” Alistair’s adorably confused voice.

“I’m more interested in how _you’re_ still alive,” came the perfectly reasonable and even tone of Wynne’s slightly exasperated voice. “When that emissary nearly took your sword arm off, it was all we could do to keep you from bleeding to death while trying to stab the dragon with your shield.”

“I was supposed to kill it, and I was supposed to die!” Alistair half-whined and half-sobbed. “She wasn’t supposed to…but she’s…”

“Not dead,” Qara croaked, head aching like she’d spent the last week drinking with Oghren every night.

“Qara!” She smiled weakly as Alistair’s far-too-sweet and confused visage filled her line of sight.

“Let her rest, child, and fetch Zevran or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Zevran was alive? Qara’s heart skipped several beats. How? How had she lived? How had he, touching the Kill Weapon while wrapped around a Grey Warden, lived? How was Alistair alive when it’d been Starfang Zev had tossed to her in the thick of battle to slay the dragon? How –”

“ _Mi amora._ ” The familiar whispered term of endearment in her ear made her sob for joy. In spite of her pain, her arms came around his neck as his wrapped around her and for long, desperate moments they clung to one another, tears falling freely, Zevran whispering Antivan words she would never understand the translation for but never needed to.

“How?” she finally managed to pull from her bruised throat into his ear.

He pulled back and looked at her, finger stroking her cheek. “Perhaps I should let Alistair begin the tale,” he said with a soft smile.

Qara looked to the left, where Alistair had pulled up a chair and seated himself next to the bed in the room wherever it was they were. She hadn’t even asked. Didn’t really matter, she supposed.

“I, uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you remember what Morrigan asked of me, that I then came and spoke to you about, the night before the battle?”

“Yes,” Qara nodded with a small frown. “She wanted to lie with you to make a child. A child that would intake the archdemon and thus spare our lives no matter who killed the dragon.”

“Dear Maker,” breathed Wynne from somewhere nearby.

“You told me you turned her away,” Qara added, confused.

“Oh, I did.” Alistair huffed out a laugh. “She was always a complete witch to me. I wasn’t about to give her anything she wanted, and most certainly not my…” he spluttered, embarrassed.

“Virginity?” Zevran supplied oh-so-helpfully.

“I will hit you one of these days, with my really painful fist,” Alistair growled with all the venom he could muster.

“I look forward to it.” Zevran’s wicked grin turned soft again as he picked up the tale. “Alistair did not lie to you, but if he had not told you of Morrigan’s and her mother’s plot to gain the soul of the archdemon, we never would have put together what seems to actually have happened.”

“Which is?” Qara asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be sitting in between you two while you’re at each other’s throats as usual, but I was there. With Zev’s help, I killed the archdemon. Without Morrigan’s deal in place, I should be dead right now and at the very least, being so close to the blast, Zev should be in bad shape.”

“I nearly had my sword arm ripped off,” Alistair groaned. “When Zev saw I couldn’t use Starfang, he grabbed it and tossed it to you for the kill.”

“And I helped you with the killing blow, my dear,” Zevran acknowledged, “but the blast threw us backwards and since we landed with me under you, it knocked the wind out of me while you were rendered unconscious.”

“Well, that explains you two surviving, but it doesn’t explain _me_.”

“I’ll take this part, since the two of you have all the tact of a rabid werewolf,” Wynne insisted, shooing Alistair away, resulting in both him and Zevran groaning like reprimanded chantry boys.

“Dear,” Wynne said as she sat on the edge of Qara’s bed and tucked the blankets back in properly around her charge, “Morrigan may not be with child, but you are.”

Qara blinked. Her eyes darted to Alistair, who looked away as his face turned red. Her eyes darted to Zevran, and the soft look on his face melted her heart as though it was ice placed atop a fully firing forge.

“We’re having a child,” Zevran whispered, like maybe he didn’t quite believe it.

“An archdemon child, which I should completely have expected from someone like you,” Alistair griped.

“Only because you couldn’t suffer your virginity be lost to the wildly sensual and seductive ways of the most beautiful human female you’re ever likely to get an offer from,” Zevran sniped back.

Qara looked at Wynne as the boys continued their barbs like they’d forgotten the women were even in the room. “Is…the baby going to be…an abomination?”

Wynne smiled. “No more than the spirit of faith that dwells in me, child.” She stroked her cheek lovingly, and the fears that had begun plaguing Qara’s mind settled a bit. “We sent to Tevinter to find someone who knew about and understood the Old Gods, for as soon as Morrigan learned of the truth, she fled. Presumably back to Flemeth.”

“And?” Qara prompted, not realizing the men had quit their bickering.

“And,” Alistair chimed in, “the young apprentice of a magister named Gereon Alexius has been with us for the past week studying and advising us on the situation, consulting with his patron and others by messenger bird. He believes he knows what’s happened.”

“But perhaps we should allow him to tell you himself, once you have recovered, _mi amora_. After all, it has been two weeks since the battle and you have only just awakened.”

Qara bristled. “Two weeks? I want to know now! I want to know what’s inside me!”

Zevran nodded once to Alistair, who rushed from the room as Wynne rose to her feet. “Remain calm, no matter what,” she advised as she patted Qara’s leg. “No child created from such love could possibly be anything _but_ love.”

Qara’s beloved sank down onto the bed next to her, then helped her as she attempted to sit up. “Who is this Tevinter magister’s assistant and do we really want a blood mage in here?”

Zevran cleared his throat and fussed over making her comfortable as he replied. “He’s not a blood mage. He refuses to practice blood magic. He is from House Pavus in Qarinus, and states that his father has always taught him that blood magic is the last resort of the weak mind. He claims his entire House has never used it.”

Qara relaxed a bit. She had always presumed every Tevinter mage used blood magic because that’s what the Circle and the Chantry and everyone else in Ferelden taught. She wondered now if that were true.

A quick rap of knuckles and an unfamiliar face appeared at the door. A very handsome human with dark skin and dark hair and a dark mustache and dressed in clothes that reflected and refracted light almost blindingly, stepped into the room.

He bowed with a flourish. In spite of herself, she grinned at his antics. “Dorian, House Pavus of Qarinus, Tevinter Imperium, at your service, my lady.”

Qara couldn’t help but bark out a laugh when Zevran quipped, “And you once called _me_ melodramatic.”

“I have been asked rather sternly by your fellow Grey Warden,” Dorian stated good-naturedly but with the same kind of wicked humor hiding beneath every word just like Zevran’s had always been, “to put your mind at ease and then, how did he put it? Leave you in your husband’s capable hands.”

Qara felt her ears heat up. Zev wiggled his eyebrows.

“Oh, I like you both,” Dorian purred, his velvety voice as soothing as it was intriguing. “You’re rather sexy together.”

Startled, Qara busted out laughing at the perplexed look on Zev’s face, delighted when Dorian’s face lit up at her amusement.

“I shall gift you with all the attributes and pleasantries of my sunny personality another time, your worship,” Dorian stated with a short side-nod-dip of his head. “Suffice it to say that the archdemon of the Fifth Blight, which you and your beloved and that very silly man who can’t decide whether he hates me or loves me—”

“Hey!” Alistair protested from the hall, causing Zevran to snort.

“—is Urthemiel. Urthemiel is the Old God of Beauty, as worshipped in the Tevinter of old. And as you were told would happen by your former witch companion should she have lain with Alistair, this Old God’s soul is now within _your_ child. That’s why you didn’t die when you slayed Urthemiel’s tainted dragon form.”

“So…our baby won’t be…an abomination?”

“Not at all,” Dorian confirmed. “The baby is simply the reincarnation of someone who used to be worshipped as a god. He or she will be a normal child. You’ll just happen to know about one of his or her past lives, is all.”

“Well,” quipped Alistair as he finally entered the room, “as normal as any child of _Zevran’s_ could be.”

Which prompted a retort from Zev.

Dorian quirked his head at Qara. “Are they always like this? How _ever_ do you stand them?”

“Usually I keep them apart. Unless we’re fighting a battle. Then they’re okay.”

With a smile that Qara had a funny feeling she knew the meaning of, Dorian replied, “Let me help with that, then.” He turned, placed his hand on Alistair’s shoulder, squeezed and purred, “There, I’ve done as you asked. Can we…” he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, “…you know.”

Alistair’s face went red. “Are you purposely implying something in front of Qara—”

“Come, my new friend,” Dorian interrupted as he manhandled the spluttering Warden out the door and closed it behind him.

“You can’t just drag me wherever you want me!” they heard Alistair half-whine, half-yell.

“Oh, come now, you protest far too much for you to actually be bothered…”

Qara busted out laughing. “I think Alistair’s finally met his match!”

But Zevran was just quietly beaming at her. “You’ve very nearly made me a respectable man in not even a year, and all the while wiggling so completely under my skin that I was at the greatest peace thinking I was dying wrapped around you with a sword stuck in a dragon’s skull.”

Softening, Qara stroked his jawline. “We’re going to be parents already.”

“I guess we’ll have to stop killing people. After all, this is not the type of life I want my son or daughter undertaking. What will I do with myself instead?”

“We’ll figure it out as we go along.”

“Just like we have Us.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I…” His words seemed to catch in his throat. “I love you, Qara.”

“As I love you.”

Qara sighed happily, toes curling as their lips met. Zevran pulled away far too soon for her liking, but she was recovering, after all, and ears were very close by. “I want out of here, wherever here is. I just want to be with you, Zevran, forever and ever.” Her face clouded over as she realized how short her ‘forever and ever’ truly was.

“He kissed her slowly, softly, lovingly. Pulled back after long, long minutes. Breathed into her breath. “I have another lead. It came from Dorian, actually.”

“A lead on what?”

“Removing the taint.”

Qara gasped. “What?”

He nodded and pulled away. “Dorian says that the Grand Enchanter of the Circle of Magi, an elf named Fiona, used to be a Grey Warden, but that somehow the taint was removed from her blood.”

“How does he know this about her?”

“He reads extensively. Researches. I have never met a more learned man. He makes me feel rather distinctively _un_ learned.”

“I will speak to him more about this knowledge of his, but either way, yes, this is a good lead. A mage who no longer bears the taint is someone I would aspire to be for certain!”

“He says it’s got something vague to do with Alistair, of all things,” Zevran mused but then shook his head as though already too confused to contemplate anything that would further confuse the confusion.

“Let’s not talk about Alistair anymore,” Qara said softly as she guided Zev’s hand to her flat tummy.

“Mm, your wish is always my command, Source of All Desire,” Zevran purred in response.

Nobody bothered them for the rest of the day.

Or night.


End file.
